Popular Opinion
by babygong
Summary: Yamanaka Ino is the most underestimated of the Konoha 11. But really, Konoha shinobi should know better than to underestimate a Yamanaka. Since with a Yamanaka you never know who is manipulating whom.


Popular Opinion

**AN: Pure word vomit, my friends, pure word vomit. Um, I think I'm going to rewrite this sometime. It didn't turn out the way I wanted, but I didn't have the heart to delete the lot and start over. So I'll write out something that turns out the way I originally planned and make it a separate story. I don't mind this one, but I think my original idea was better. I just hate scrapping things. I have this one NejiTen fic that I already wrote out the beginning of, and I now realize it sucks. But I just don't have the heart to delete it. I mean, it's 3k of words that I worked really hard on! Sigh. I'll delete it eventually. If you're interested in seeing the beginning bit of the NejiTen fic that I half-wrote let me know and I'll post it. This was written in a plane. 12 hour flights suck. A lot. I you haven't noticed yet, I like writing plotless gen fics about minor characters. Oh, by the way. I think I need a beta.**

**Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. I am horrible at drawing. And plotting. So yeah.**

The most horrible sound in the world isn't the sound of a man's last shuddering breath, nor is it that of someone's neck being cleanly snapped. It isn't nails on a chalkboard or the screams that so frequently echo through the halls of the T&I building. The most horrible sound in the world is far more subtle, one that most people would miss if they had the chance to hear it. The most horrible sound in the world is that of a mind breaking. To hear this you would have to be a mindwalker, meaning you would be a Yamanaka.

Yamanaka Ino will never forget the first time she heard a mind break. She had been warned about it, but it wasn't a sharp, clean snap as she had expected. It was slower and drawn out, just from the sound of it you could hear the tension as the man's mind struggled to remain solid but finally gave way. She remembers coming to her senses in her own body and seeing her father standing above her, looking down pityingly. Ino still shivers thinking about the sound. She has grown somewhat accustomed to it, but she will never get completely used to it.

She remembers clearly her father's elation when he found that she had the potential for their clan techniques. She had been very young and at the time she hadn't quite realized the importance of the situation. As a matter of fact she hadn't quite realized what the whole thing was about, but as long as Daddy was happy everything would be okay. Only later does she learn to appreciate her ability.

The Yamanaka are not a large clan. Their clan functions very loosely in casually since they have no Kekkei Genkai to protect the purity of. They only have their clan jutsus, which they covet as much as other clans and their Kekkei Genkei, and their signature blonde hair and blue eyes. Sakura has marveled to Ino how it's incredible that the blonde hair and blue eyes have been passed down even though it's a recessive gene. Ino doesn't really give a damn about genetics since her clan jutsus don't rely on it.

Their clan jutsus are not taught to just anyone, partly for the sake of secrecy and partly because not just anyone can do these jutsus. It has nothing to do with your blood or who you're descended from, it's simply the fact that some have an aptitude for it and others don't. Their clan jutsus are only passed down by oral teachings, they are never written down. The security is only a small factor in this. Scrolls can be stolen, yes, but writing down the Yamanaka mind walking jutsus would be almost useless anyway. Yamanaka clan jutsus rely on very subtle feelings that are difficult to describe even from one mindwalker to another.

Ino's training was never grueling physically like Gai puts his students through. Rather, it was exhausting mentally. It started from a very young age. In the beginning she barely realized it was training. Her father and her would go out and interact with regular people and afterwards he would quiz her on how each person she spoke to was feeling. He made her guess what they were thinking and at she thought of it as great fun. Later in life she realizes he was testing how perceptive she was and how well she could read into moods and thoughts without any chakra or jutsus.

The first and simplest mind walking jutsu is one that isn't reading into someone's mind, but rather projecting thoughts and feelings into another's. She practices on her father and the first step is projecting emotions. She gets it very easily and she moves on to words. He warns her to carefully control her thoughts since anything she thinks he will hear. If she is lacking anything it is focus, which is crucial for a Yamanaka. He is sure, though, that this will come as she is older.

The counterpart to her first mind walking jutsu is the opposite, being open and susceptible to the thoughts and emotions of someone projecting at her. Even someone who is not open to the thoughts of someone projecting at them will hear them if the thoughts are projected strongly enough. Emotions are subtler and require sensitivity to detect even if they are being projected strongly. In this test Inoichi projects strongly in the beginning moving on to the faintest bit.

Nothing could have prepared Ino for the first time she ventured into someone's mind. They began with someone who didn't have very many memories in an attempt to not overwhelm Ino. A small civilian child was used for the task, since this child couldn't have seen anything that would scar Ino. Of all people, the Yamanaka know best how easily a mind is broken. The child's memories were similar to her own, happy and simplistic. But no amount of warning could have prepared Ino for the flood of memories and sensations that hit her at once. She tries to sort through the memories methodically, see if there is any kind of order to them. There isn't. The memories are like a roaring waterfall pounding over her head. As she tries to process one of them the next three have already smashed into her. She grits her teeth and focuses on literally freezing the entire waterfall in mid-fall. The amount of concentration needed to suspend all those memories above her causes her entire body to tremble, but she continues. Carefully she plucks one out of the air and lets that one envelope her, making sure to not let her grip suspending the rest of the memories in the air loosen. She repeats this for different memories, but a particularly vivid memory overwhelms her and everything comes crashing down and drowns her.

She is unconscious or about an hour after returning to her own body and she learns very little information from that child's mind, but the next time she tries she is prepared. The more she does it the more she enjoys it. She finds a thrill out of sifting through a person's most intimate thoughts. Her father is very strict about ensuring she understands that this is no game. He teaches her these jutsus at a very young age since they are easier to learn when you are young and pliable, but there's always the danger of becoming addicted to this kind of power.

Sometimes Inoichi regrets teaching Ino mind walking, since mind games come hand in hand with it. There's no way he could teach her the clan jutsus without teaching her good old-fashioned mind games, especially since they're so valuable. They require no chakra whatsoever and work wonders in interrogation. Unfortunately Ino abuses her skills in mind games. Being the most skilled child Inoichi had ever seen at mind games, Ino spends her Academy days running circles around everyone. She coerces the other girls into doing her homework and the boys into buying her things without them even realizing they've been manipulated.

Ino has the best teacher possible for their clan jutsus, since Inoichi is the best of the best, but that's not the only thing that contributes to her success. She has an incredible amount of natural ability. Her ability to understand how feelings work and read into the feelings of others is above even her father. Her ability to empathize with just about anyone is enhanced when she begins to trawl through people's feelings and memories and she becomes a huge asset to the Hokage in her ability to predict the actions of people.

Ino's greatest skill is how innovative she is. She invents new jutsus to suit different prisoners that need to be broken. Her understanding of the human mind is the best in the world. She is revered in the T&I division, but nowhere else. She prefers it that way, the only fame interrogators get is infamy like Ibiki.

Ino pities Asuma-sensei for getting their team but, she supposes, every team has its failings. At least her team was cohesive from the start. She thinks it must be difficult to be her sensei, since the only thing she is interested learning are mind walking jutsus, something that that is impossible for Asuma-sensei to teach her. Even if he could her father is the best mind walker of Konoha and the Yamanaka, so naturally he would teach Ino.

Ino doesn't know what she would do it if she hadn't been born with the ability enabling her to be a mindwalker. All of her other skills are mediocre, some even below average. Her teamwork is flawlessy, but only with Shikamaru and Chouji, with any other team she's just deadweight to them. Her taijustsu is definitely sub-par and her genjutsu is only average. The only ninjutsu she excels at are her clan techniques which are little use in combat. If not for her clan jutsus resulting in her success in the T&I division she would have been a good-for-nothing Chuunin for the rest of her life.

Ino is the most underestimated member of the Konoha 11. Sakura has won her reputation as Tsundae's apprentice, Naruto is slated to become the next Hokage, Kiba is hailed as a hero among the Inuzukas, Hinata is the Hyuuga heiress, Shino is regarded with suspicion and a bit of fear simply because of the nature of his clan techniques, Shikamaru is The Genius, and even soft-hearted Chouji is respected for his strength. The popular opinion of Ino is that she is a beautiful, weak girl who spent more time primping than training, and no one makes an effort to hide their disdain.

But that's exactly what she wants them to think.

**Review please!**


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